WEB // PROJECT 2, MILESTONE 1

Design and Planning

For this project, I am creating a socially-focused website centered around the topic of pornography. I have long been interested in the debate over pornography and its effects on individual users, the industry, and society, so it was a natural choice for me to create a website which explores the topic further and can provide links to studies, articles and other resources.

My intended audience is adults and young adults who are interested in learning more about pornography and how it can have harmful effects. In addition, one of my main goals with this site is to provide a starting point for people to explore more on their own, with helpful links to other studies and articles, but I would also like to synthesize some of the research into interesting, infographic-style pages that will engage readers who don’t want to sift through scientific studies.

One of my biggest challenges so far with this website and the initial designing process is deciding how to represent information visually and in a way that is interesting and engaging. I have some experience making infographics, but not infographic-style websites. For some pages, especially the “Stats” page, I plan on pairing graphics with text in a grid layout to achieve this effect.

In addition, for each page on my site, I tried to think through how the website would adapt for smaller screen sizes, so that I would be prepared to implement responsivity in later iterations of the design. In most cases, the grid will just collapse down into a single column, but I know I will need to do some smaller font size and images changes as well.

Here are a few sketches for what my pages will eventually look like:

As you can see, I plan on having a homepage with a menu for the rest of the pages on the site. With this design, users can go straight to what they are interested in learning about, or they can navigate through in a more linear fashion.

I expect I’ll end up with about 3 main pages with more information, graphics, and links, but I could end up with more. Right now, I plan on having a “Stats” page with statistics about general pornography use around the world, a page called, “Is Pornography Addictive?” with links to various studies around the debate of pornography addiction, and a page for more resources (larger websites like Fight the New Drug or Your Brain on Porn). I could also include a page specifically about porn’s negative effects on intimacy and relationships, or effects on the world, so this organization isn’t set in stone quite yet.

In terms of more general design features of my website, I plan on heavily using sans-serif fonts, but perhaps also using a serif/fantasy font for my website title/logo. Right now, I’m considering a color scheme including purple, pink, or blue. And above, you can see the plan for my site’s navigation: there will be a main homepage with links to several pages, and each page will have a menu so that users can get back to the homepage if they wish.

Sources, Articles and Studies

Here are some useful resources that I’ve found about pornography and hope to include in my website (either by linking to them, or sharing their content):

Major websites:

• Fight the New Drug (https://fightthenewdrug.org/)
• Your Brain on Porn (https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/)

Smaller articles and studies:

• http://www.apa.org/monitor/2014/04/pornography.aspx
• https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sex-life-the-american-male/201710/pornography-addiction-in-2017
• https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/cambridge-university-brain-scans-find-porn-addiction
• https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/scary-effects-pornography-21st-centurys-accute-addiction-rewiring/
• https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/brain-scan-studies-porn-users
• https://fightthenewdrug.org/is-porn-addiction-even-a-real-thing/

I plan on looking for more as well once I start working on the implementation of my website, but I think these will be a good place to start.